As you've no doubt heard, Apple has run into some legal trouble in Germany and has been looking for effective means to win this war on copyright claims. Fortunately, their legal department has won themselves a victory for the iPad 2; however, the iPhone 4 and iCloud saw their day in court just recently, and it doesn't look like there will be much hope for them unless Apple meets the claims head-on and gains the high ground.
"Apple surely is bitter for having to pay a top Android phonemaker for its "innovation"
Today Apple, Inc. (AAPL) dodged one bullet in German court, but saw another unfavorable ruling put in place, which will presumably block Apple's iCloud in the European Union nation until Apple can successfully appeal or settles the dispute.
We've just published a review on the super silent PC Power & Cooling Silencer Mk III 600W PSU. This modular power supply is aimed at the mainstream and mid-range markets ... for users who wants ultra-quiet operation. Here's a snip ...
"I have to say that I really like seeing a PSU dressed in something other than black! It's a refreshing change. The white looks great under UV as well, reflecting the dark purple nature of near-UV quite nicely."
Over at Hardware Secrets, they have published a review of the Seagate Barracuda 3TB Hard Drive...
"Most enthusiasts will favor SSDs for their main boot drive rather than a mechanical hard drive thanks to the vast performance benefits available. However, there is still a large market for high performance mechanical drives which offer a much larger capacity for storage of large files. Today we are going to look at the latest Barracuda hard drive from Seagate, which offers no less than 3 TB of storage space."
Over at TechwareLabs, they have published a review of the Prolimatech Genesis CPU Cooler...
"Prolimatech is a bit of the new kid on the block at TechwareLabs. We haven't reviewed much of their stuff in the past. They have stiff competition from established names in the cooling business, like Thermaltake and Coolermaster. Just because they're new doesn't mean they can can't turn some heads as we see when we look at their Genesis CPU cooler. This cooler is a behemoth, and we put it through its paces when we try it out on our i7 system. Read on to find out the results."
Well, it was probably inevitable that this giant social-network would one day grow to the status that it has. This is certainly some big news; however, there has been some concern as to what this happening means for the rest of us. With this new ground for investors also means new ways in which Facebook will have to be funded. A generous portion is payed for by advertisers, which the company divulges information to in order to bring you specific types of ads. And with public status, the advertising department will have to go the extra mile in order to bring rake in the funds necessary to keep it afloat. Still, we can only hope that things go well for Mr. Zuckerberg as this new chapter in the Facebook page begins.
"The finance world began the day eagerly awaiting Facebook's filing of initial public offering (IPO) paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
What is IPO?
When a company files IPO paperwork, it is allowing public investors to buy its stock. This means that Facebook will now be owned, partially, by individuals and companies who invest in it.
Why is Facebook going public?
When a company reaches five hundred investors, it legally has to begin making its financial records available to the SEC, according to Paul Sloan's "Three Reasons Facebook Has to Go Public." For some companies, like Facebook, doing so can be a burden. When a company reaches five hundred investors, it is in its best interest to go public. The investors then take some of the risk and put more money into the company's funds. This allows the company to make changes it may not have been able to make without that extra money."
We've just publushed a review on these Crucial Ballistix Elite 16Gb Kits (4x4Gb). Yes, a whopping 16GB of ram! They're more than enough to satisfy even the most hardcore of enthusiast users. Not only do they look good ... but these 16Gb kits are rated upto DDR3-1866 (PC3-14900) with a low latency of 9-9-9-27. Here's a snip ...
"I must say, these Crucial Ballistix Elite sticks are simply fantastic. At a time when other companies ramp up timings and cut down on costs Crucial still offers a product that will satisfy the needs of the extreme benchmarkers and power users."
I suppose so; the University of California, Berkeley, has been conducting numerous experiments with brain technology, and coming up with ways to potentially read people's minds. The data gathered could prove to be rather useful to people suffering from mental disabilities and give them their own, unique form of communication.
"Someday, people whose ability to speak has been damaged by illness or injury may be able to vocalize anyway with the help of technology. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have made strides toward translating the words a person thinks into real speech.
The researchers used 15 patients undergoing neurosurgery as subjects.
They placed electrodes on the subjects' brains, then recorded the activity detected as the subjects listened to a conversation. This recorded data was reconstructed and played back.
Algorithms were used to process the data.
The subjects were exposed to both English words and nonsensical words, and the system worked equally well for both.
That means once the technology becomes practicable, it could be used anywhere.
"The approach was based on auditory features, so it's not specific to English," research team leader Brian Pasley, a post-doctoral student at UC Berkeley's Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, told TechNewsWorld.
Details of the Research
Up to 256 surface electrode arrays were placed on the surfaces of the superior and middle temporal gyri of the participants' brains.
The superior temporal gyrus includes the primary auditory cortex, which is responsible for the sensation of sound, and Wernicke's area, which is involved in processing speech so it can be understood as language.
It's not clear how the middle temporal gyrus functions, but it's been connected with various processes, including distance contemplation, facial recognition, and accessing the meaning of words while reading.
The participants listened to words for five to 10 minutes while neural signals were recorded from the electrode arrays. Those signals were recorded and played back.
Pasley used two different computational models to match the spoken sounds to the pattern of activity in the electrodes. The better of the two reproduced a sound close enough to the original word that the researchers could correctly guess the word."
Interesting this ... but I don't belive it. As far as I'm concerned, Apple isn't really classed as "PC Market" ...
"Canalys has announced that Apple, after reporting stellar results, became the leading worldwide client PC vendor in the fourth quarter of 2011. Apple shipped over 15 million iPads and five million Macs, representing 17% of the total 120 million client PCs shipped globally in the fourth quarter. Overall, the total client PC market, including desktops, netbooks, notebooks, and pads grew 16% on-year. Excluding pads, the client PC market declined 0.4%. The floods in Thailand, that impacted hard drive assembly plants, caused mild disruption to shipments during the quarter, but the side effects are likely to be felt in the first half of 2012.
Among the other top five PC vendors, only Lenovo managed to increase its market share, by a relatively modest two points, compared to Apple's six-point gain over the same quarter a year ago. Acer, Dell and HP – the hardest hit – all lost market share. Now the second largest client PC vendor worldwide, HP will struggle to compete with Apple following the end of its Touchpad."
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